Short Story: Pure

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Pure
By Gary Anderson

As I lay in the hospital bed awaiting medical attention, my mind began to wander. It began conjuring up images of the horrors I had been witness to over the past six weeks. Six weeks. God, was that all it had been? Just six weeks ago, I had been carefree. I didn't have a hateful bone in my body, especially not for a race of people that had done nothing to me. However now, things were all different. Six weeks had changed everything that nineteen years prior had instilled in me.

I had been glad to be drafted. As I had been an ostracized member of my high school class, never having been invited to join in any parties or other non-school celebrations, I relished the chance to be a part of something. Even if it meant carrying a gun and risking my life. It's lonely at the bottom, what can I say?

I guess if I had to pin down the moment I changed, I figure it was somewhere between the day that Dominoes, the Brooklyn kid who slept beside me died right in front of me, and the day I had to kill a crazy screaming Vietnamese boy.

Dominoes was eighteen and a tough guy who didn't seem to be afraid of anything. I'm glad he was brave because I was scared out of my mind. He always carried a set of dominoes along with him, said that they had belonged to his grandfather who had been in World War I. He said that his grandfather had gotten home safe with them, and that they would protect him. I'm not sure if he really believed that or not, but as we descended into the jungles, he seemingly had a forcefield around him that protected him and those in his immediate area.

We lost several members of our group that day. That night we were sitting down, with our backs to a tree when he pulled out his dominoes case and showed me where there was a jagged hole in the casing. He opened it up and there was a mangled bullet.

He stared at me and didn't say a word. He just closed the case and put it back in his pocket. He never addressed it then or any other time, but I assume that he had gotten hit, but the domino case, which he always carried over his breast had stopped the bullet.

One night his case turned up missing. He tore up the site where we were at looking for it, but it was gone. He ranted and raved screaming that someone, anyone who was playing a joke on him had better return it or he would kill them with his bare hands, but the dominoes case never turned up.

That night Dominoes took a bullet in the eye.

As we went on, the normally jocular group had suddenly been quieted. There was nothing to laugh about now. Sure, a couple of the guys had already been killed, but Dominoes had had an air of invincibility about him. If he could die...

We reached a Vietnamese camp and while there, the guys filled up their canteens, and took a rest. For the first time since I had been there I didn't feel that I had to watch my back. For some reason, I felt safe here. I don't know why, but something told me we would be okay.

I took off my pack and sat down by a dwelling. I heaved a sigh of relief. I closed my eyes and was about to doze off when I felt my pack moving. I opened my eyes and turned around and there was a Vietnamese kid staring at me. He couldn't have been much more than twelve. I just stared at him for a moment and pulled my pack back towards me. He began speaking quickly in his language and I just stared at him blankly.

"He says, he likes your pack. He wants you to let him have it."

I looked behind me and saw my commanding officer. He knelt down beside me, and began talking to the kid in Vietnamese. The kid spoked rapidly back and forth with the CO, before running off.

I looked at my CO and asked what the heck that was all about.

"You gotta watch yourself here, private. These kids will rip you off in a heartbeat. That's if you are lucky. These kids are killers. Don't trust any of these people."

"You seemed to get along fine with him."

"He's afraid of me. He knows I'm not above knocking his ass in the dirt. You pose no threat to him, and he knows it."

"I could."

"No you couldn't. And he knows it." he said gently. He stared at my hurt face, and said, "Don't worry about it private. It's nothing personal. They can tell if you've been in these jungles for a day or a year or more. It's the way you carry yourself. Besides, anyone who had been here before wouldn't fall asleep as soon as they got here."

I sheepishly sat up, and wiped my eyes.

"Watch yourself private, and I won't have to worry about telling your family that you didn't make it back. Like your friend."

He got up and walked away, yelling for another private.

I picked up my gun and began staring at it. Just running my eyes over the entire length of it.

I had never really been a gun guy before. I didn't like them at all, in actuality. But I just took using a gun as part of the package deal of being invited along. Take the bad with the good, you know.

Suddenly I felt something like a thin rope wrap around my throat and jerk me back. My hands dropped the gun, and went for my throat, trying to loosen whatever it was that was choking me. I tried to cry out for help, but couldn't. I felt myself being dragged backwards, kicking and clutching at my throat, as I felt the ground changing from dirt to the green of the jungle.

Finally, I let go of my throat, and reached behind me as far as I could reach and grabbed hold of whoever it was. I pulled with all my strength, and suddenly the pressure around my throat was relieved. I began coughing as I got up and faced my attacker.

It was the twelve year old.

He began chattering again pointing back to where my pack was. I didn't need anyone to tell me what he said. I didn't give a damn, I just wanted to kick his ass. I lunged after him, and grabbed him by the shirt, and started punching him repeatedly in the face. He fell backwards, pulling me with him and I felt something poke me in the side, followed by a sharp intense pain and I knew I had been stabbed.

I yelled with frustration, and got on top of the kid and just started punching him and kicking him with my knees.

I don't know what I was yelling but it was enough to signal my company, because I heard footsteps behind me and suddenly I had hands grabbing at me. I swung backwards attempting to get them off of me, and I continued to beat the boy.

Finally enough hands grabbed hold of me and I was being pulled backwards. I struggled for a moment, but then collapsed on my back. I was breathing heavy, and I looked down and saw blood all over my stomach, and side.

That's when I passed out.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital, being tended to by a pretty nurse. It was hard to breathe, and I had to do so by taking short breaths.

The nurse told me that according to the doctors, when the kid stabbed me, he broke the knife blade off inside me, and it rested in between my ribs. The kid was dead.

They confirmed that the kid was only twelve, but he wasn't just a kid. He was a hardcore fighter. They didn't get a chance to question the kid about anything. They said he was dead when they pulled me off of him.

The guy beside me had gotten shot in the left knee and lost the lower part of his leg. He said that he was headed home as soon as the doctor cleared him to leave. He said that if I was lucky I would be going home too.

But as I lay there, I didn't know what I wanted. I found myself consumed with hatred. Hatred for the kid who put me here. Hatred for the commanding officer for pointing out that I was an easy mark, hatred for the President for sending us over here and changing our entire lives forever. Well...those of us who managed to come back.

But it made me wonder. Was I really that lucky? I think Dominoes was the luckiest of all. He got to leave 'Nam the way he came. Pure. God, I'd give anything to be pure again.